Medicare to Penalize Hospitals for Patient Injuries
For the general public, hospitals are supposed to be a place where you get premium care for your ailments. There is an expectancy of cleanliness and safety that transcends the norms of other institutions. However, there are many cases where patients end up being worse off than what they were before they went to the hospital.
No longer will hospitals where infections are commonplace be unaccountable for the negligence that caused the infections. Medicare is pushing to impose hefty fines on facilities that have high injury and infection rates.
What the stats say
Although infection and injury rates at hospitals are in decline, there are still too many cases where unfortunate patients were caught on the short end of hospital-related injuries and infections. As many as one in every eight patients suffered avoidable complications while being tended to in a hospital. These avoidable instances are set to cost hospitals around $330 million a year.
The federal health officials are still not happy with the decline and are of the opinion that the number could decrease even further. Infections like central line-associated bloodstream infections are mainly caused due to negligence and are said to be avoidable.
These cases have declined over the years, but are nowhere near an acceptable rate. Also, the cases where drug-resistant super-bugs have emerged, have aired other areas of concern.
What Medicare is proposing
Hospitals who continue to display high numbers of infection and patient injuries are to lose 1% of their Medicare payments over a one-year period. It is believed that nearly 25% of all hospitals in the country are in danger of being penalized. This equates to a staggering 761 hospitals who will face the music.
These penalties have not yet been finalized; however, when the day comes, the hospitals in question might rethink their safety and precautionary protocols and procedures.
Who are the likely candidates?
All medical staff has to train somewhere and it seems like the teaching hospitals are the ones where the numbers are the highest. At present, around 54% of the country’s teaching hospitals have been marked for preliminary penalties.
Unfortunately, these hospitals carry the burden of training new medical staff and it is believed that due to the levels of inexperience and training that these hospitals have such a high rate of infections and injuries. The main priorities of these hospitals are of an academic nature and as a result, safety is not always monitored closely.
However, regardless of the level of experience or academic nature of the hospitals, it does not indemnify them of their first priority and that is the safety of the patients.
What can be done?
As a patient, you are not always aware of your rights within a hospital and when there are complications, you can feel helpless. However, when you suspect that there has been malpractice and that infection could have been averted, you should seek professional advice. Call us on (213) 386-9100 and find out where you stand and get back what you lost.